


037 "robot zoo"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [37]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fish out of Water, My Pepper is different, Pre-Iron Man, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony’s evening guest is scared off by his army of homemade robots, led by Pepper, who likes to sing to them and feed them. Later, Pepper continues to anthropomorphize the robots as Tony and Rhodey try to disassemble an old tractor. “I am not accustomed to examining the waste products of members of the household.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	037 "robot zoo"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. The timeline is Chapter 2 of story 031 “wet.”
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

            “So, you’re Greek, huh? Yeah? Well why don’t we just get out a little olive oil and—“

            The young lady seemed amenable to the suggestion I whispered in her ear. But then again, I wouldn’t have brought her home if she didn’t seem amenable to quite a lot. What was the point otherwise? We had ended up in the kitchen somehow, which wasn’t exactly on the way upstairs, but we didn’t have all four feet on the ground and I figured it was best not to tackle the stairs yet. I had learned from experience that falling down a staircase was not a good way to keep the mood going. So we were in the kitchen, and she was on the counter—which Pepper would have found very unsanitary—and there was a good chance we weren’t going to get any farther, geographically speaking, for some time.

            “What was that?” she asked suddenly. I can’t remember her name now, so we’ll just call her Marina. Aren’t all Greek women named Marina?

            I grinned at Marina roguishly. “Well, honey, if you don’t know what _that_ is, we’ll have to send you back to remedial classes…” We had just come from a charity dinner to support education in South America, so I thought this joke was appropriate.

            “No, I mean—There it is again,” she insisted, looking around the dimly-lit kitchen. “That noise!”

            I was quite used to the little noises my house made. “Just the house settling. Don’t worry about it.” I attempted to distract her.

            “I just heard—Oh my G-d, something moved over there!” she exclaimed, pointing to the corner. “Do you have _mice_?”

            “Mice? No, what is this, Bolivia?” I scoffed, remembering our appetizing pre-dinner video about slum conditions. I glanced back over my shoulder just to be sure. “Oh, it’s just a robot.”

            “A _robot_?” she repeated, with a mixture of trepidation and intrigue.

            “Yeah, you don’t mind robots, do you?” I asked, unzipping her dress. “They’re just like dogs. Ignore them.”

            “Oh my G-d! There’s more!” Another person might have been impressed by my technological prowess, to see the robots I had built _by hand_ scurrying around. Marina, however, seemed a little freaked. I wondered if she was one of those terrifying people who ‘didn’t like computers.’

            “Yeah, there’s a few, they won’t bother us,” I assured her, trying to bring her attention back to the matter at hand. Of course, right then one of the little buggers ran into my ankle. I tried not to wince and gave the robot, which was about the size of an electric pencil sharpener, a swift scoot to the other side of the room.

            By now there were a good half-dozen of my creations scurrying across the floor. You’ve probably heard of the Roomba, that little robot vacuum that cleans floors automatically? Well, I invented one of those _years_ ago, only Obadiah convinced me there was no market for it and we shouldn’t bother trying to scale up its manufacture. I still get steamed every time I see one. Anyway, I’d built one for myself, of course, and a number of other similar machines that ran around the house doing little chores. H—l of a lot more trustworthy than a human cleaner, I can tell you that.

            “What are they doing?” Marina asked in nervous wonder. If her feet hadn’t already been off the floor, I thought she would’ve been standing on a chair by now.

            “They’re just cleaning,” I told her dismissively.

            “Oh, like that Roomba thing?”

            I gritted my teeth. “Far superior, actually. But anyway, what were you saying about being double-jointed…?”

            This only distracted her for a few moments. “Hey, they don’t have cameras on them, do they?” she asked suspiciously, holding up the dress I was tugging on.

            “Well, sure, they have to be able to see where they’re going,” I explained quickly. “But they aren’t, like, kinky recording cameras. Unless you’re into that kind of thing, then I’m sure we could work something out. _Are_ you into that kind of thing?”

            Her amenability surfaced again. “Well, I—Hey, that’s my scarf!”

            I turned where she pointed and saw one of my creations scuttling away with a colorful silk scarf that had been dropped on the floor during our earlier, less preoccupied entry into the kitchen. “Hey, Stooge!” I summoned sharply. The toaster-sized robot stopped its escape and beeped at me. “Yes, _you_. Get back here with that.” Beep, beep. “What, do you think I wear silk scarves all of a sudden? Bring it over here.” The robots had been programmed to pick up stray articles of clothing—ninety-five percent of which belonged to me—and bring them to the laundry room for Pepper to sort and judge. “I said, come _here_.”

            Finally the overzealous gadget wheeled back towards me and I was able to rescue the scarf from it. “They aren’t very smart, are they?” Marina commented.

            Normally I would have been stung by this, but at the moment I agreed completely. “Well, if there’s artificial intelligence, there’s bound to be artificial stupidity.”

            Suddenly Marina shrieked and leaped at me, which usually I was all for although a little warning would have been nice, but it turned out it was only because one of the robots had popped up on the counter top looking for crumbs. My experiments with robotic flight had so far resulted only in holes in the ceiling—flight stabilizers are quite tricky, you know—but I had developed extendable legs that were useful for getting small robots up to and down from raised surfaces.

            Marina wasn’t really appreciating my engineering, however. “Okay, guys, go away now,” I instructed the robots. “Really, thank you, come back later, go back downstairs now. Beat it. Scram. I’m serious.”

            “Why aren’t they going away?” Marina demanded, clutching me like a koala bear. And I was not particularly turned on by koala bears. “Oh my G-d! Are they out of control?!”

            “You’ve seen too many sci-fi movies,” I judged. Or their trailers, at least—I couldn’t picture her as a sci-fi fan. “They’re just—not too bright. Hey, honey!” I shouted over my shoulder in the general direction of Pepper’s room. “I thought I told you to put the robots out for the night!”

            A light came on and footsteps were heard. Satisfied that the robot situation was now well in hand, I turned back to my guest. Who was now looking dubiously down the hall. “Who’s that? Is that your wife?”

            I barely restrained myself from rolling my eyes. Yes, I, the infamous Tony Stark, staple of the tabloids, somehow had a wife that nobody knew about. And I was going to admit it to a near-stranger. “No, that’s just Pepper,” I assured her. “That’s just my assistant. Do you want to _pretend_ she’s my wife?” I asked, inspired. “Are you into that kind of thing? Let’s go upstairs and pretend my wife is down here…”

            Pepper wandered into the kitchen right about then. “Good evening, Mr. Stark,” she said calmly.

            “Hi, Pepper. Come on, let’s go upstairs,” I coaxed Marina.

            “Okay. Did you want me to take care of the robots first?” Pepper asked.

            “No, not—“ Hmm, that was right, Pepper hadn’t been at the charity dinner, so she hadn’t been introduced to Marina. Which meant my guest was invisible as long as I was around. Which presented certain intriguing possibilities. “Yeah, get rid of the robots, please, Pepper.”

            The disloyal little creatures flocked to her like rats to the Pied Piper. But you never saw one of them nip _her_ ankle, oh no. They just beeped and whistled and spun around in circles like they were doing tricks for her. “Good robots,” she told them flatly. I rolled my eyes. “I was just going to have a snack, Mr. Stark. Would you like one?”

            Marina had apparently decided that since the robots were now swarming Pepper, she could focus on _me_ again. Which was great. Until Pepper mentioned food. “I could use something to nibble on,” she replied, which I thought she meant as an innuendo until she turned around to add, “What’ve you got? Like, maybe some caviar and crackers?”

            Pepper didn’t respond, which was no surprise to _me_. “She can’t hear you.”

            “Oh. DO YOU HAVE ANY CRACKERS?!” Marina repeated at the top of her lungs, making me wince. The cluster of robots around Pepper’s feet trilled and hooted louder.

            “No, I mean, she can’t—“

            “Oh, sorry, I don’t know sign language,” Marina admitted. “What’s the sign for ‘cracker’?” She started making random, vaguely ridiculous hand gestures.

            I knew what gesture _I_ felt like making. “No, she can’t _see_ you, either,” I told her. Why did I feel like this whole situation was spiraling out of control? “She can’t see or hear you until I introduce you. Would you all shut up?!” I demanded of the squealing machines.

            Instantly they silenced. “She can’t see or hear me?” Marina persisted, as Pepper nonchalantly made herself a sandwich. “Until you introduce me? That’s weird.”

            “Yeah, it is a little,” I agreed quickly. “So why don’t we just—“

            A robot offered up a single tremulous squeak. “No, I’m sure Mr. Stark isn’t mad at you,” Pepper replied soothingly. “Sometimes you just get too excited, that’s all.”

            Getting too excited was not a problem _I_ was having at the moment, unfortunately. “Let’s just go upstairs and leave Pepper with the robots, okay?” I suggested to Marina.

            “Okay,” she agreed. The instant her foot touched the floor, however, a pack of robots squawked like angry birds and whizzed towards her. Her foot did not stay on the floor for long. “They’re gonna get me!”

            “They’re not gonna—They’re not dangerous,” I insisted, beginning to get seriously exasperated. “They’re like—they’re just little computers. Like an iPhone. They’re fine.”

            “An iPhone?” Marina repeated dimly. “I don’t really like all those gadgety things.”

            I really needed to start screening my guests better. Next she’d be telling me she was a war protester or something. “Go away. Scatter. Get lost. Go back to the workshop.” I nudged one a little too hard and it careened straight across the kitchen floor and tumbled down the two steps into the living room, squealing all the way.

            “Mr. Stark!” Pepper chided, hurrying to retrieve it. “Are you alright?” She picked the machine up and examined it. “No, I’m _sure_ it was an accident,” she told it in response to a pathetic beep, giving me a narrow look. “You’ll be just fine.”

            “Pepper, they can’t get hurt, they’re not alive,” I tried to explain, and not for the first time.

            “Why’s she talking to it?” Marina asked. “Can it understand her?”

            I ignored her. The other robots seemed eager to avenge their mistreated comrade and were taking turns running into my shoe, then scurrying away—Great, now _I_ was anthropomorphizing them. “Pepper, would you just put the d—n robots away?!”

            She set the one she was holding on the floor and it stuck close to her, shying away when I glared at it. “I have to feed them first,” she decided, her tone still cool towards me.

            “No, no, Pepper.” I shook my head. “You do _not_ have to feed them!” I now regretted having spent so much time working with Pepper on the concept of pets. Clearly she had learned her lessons a little too well.

            “What’s she mean, feed them?” Marina put in obtrusively.

            “They like to have just a little food before going to bed,” Pepper was telling me. She got down a box of Cheerios and dropped a small handful onto the floor. Immediately several of the robots swooped in. “No fighting! That’s for you, Genius.” One of the robots rolled over the Cheerios, leaving no trace of them behind.

            “Pepper!” I exclaimed. “They’re not _eating_ , they’re cleaning! Good G-d, no wonder we’ve been going through so much cereal lately…”

            “Wow, I didn’t know robots ate cereal,” Marina commented.

            “They don’t,” I snapped. “Pepper, would you just—“

            “This one you have to mash the food up for,” she pointed out, using a spoon to crush some Cheerios into a fine powder on the counter. “Come on, up you go.” She lifted another one up to the surface.

            “They do have _legs_ , you know,” I said sullenly. Not that anyone around here listened to me. “Ow! You run into me one more time, I swear to G-d I will strip you down and sell you for parts!”

            “Mr. Stark!” The robot on the counter, which was designed to vacuum up small crumbs, rolled over the crushed Cheerios and sucked them up. “You shouldn’t talk to them that way,” Pepper chastised me. “They’ll become dysfunctional and misbehave.”

            “Is that what’s wrong with them?” Marina asked worriedly. “Oh my G-d, are they _abused_?” Our pre-dinner video had touched on a similar theme about the cycle of poverty and violence.

            I leaned over and rested my head on the counter, very close to throwing in the towel and putting tonight in the ‘loss’ column. Immediately I was head-butted by the robot that had just ‘eaten,’ fortunately not very hard.

            “It’s on you! It’s on you!” Marina shrieked.

            Pepper then started singing to the robots. Her style was to imitate with creepy accuracy the style of _other_ singers, though she hadn’t quite gotten the idea that her vocal cords weren’t meant to produce sounds like a man’s. I believe she was attempting Frank Sinatra at this point, which didn’t bother me or the robots. My guest, on the other hand—

            “What’s she doing?! Oh my G-d, how is she making that noise?! Is she a robot, too? Hey, ARE YOU A ROBOT?!” I didn’t look up but I felt the counter robot stop whacking me. “Hey, let go of my purse! Let go, you little mugger!” I turned my head to the side and watched idly as the robot attempted to vacuum up Marina’s little evening bag.

            She hopped to the floor, heels coming dangerously close to treading on the other robots zipping between her feet. “Hey, be careful—“ I began.

            She was in a tug of war with the little machine on the counter over her purse. “Let go! I said, let go, d----t!” The robot locked its wheels stubbornly and let out a high-pitched whine.

            “Oh dear, what’s wrong with you?” Pepper asked it curiously. “Didn’t you like your cereal?”

            She picked it up, which jerked Marina’s arms up, too. “Hey! Make it let go! Hey, listen to me!”

            But of course Pepper _couldn’t_ listen to her. Which I was beginning to see as an advantage at this point, as Marina’s voice had become rather screechy. I attempted to intervene in a gentlemanly fashion. “If you would just—“ Marina gave a hard yank, which pulled a startled Pepper into the counter between them. “Hey, stop it!” I ordered. “Pepper, are you okay?”

            She was staring at the robot in her hands with some amazement. “You’ve really improved the power level of their motors,” she remarked to me.

            Okay, enough was enough already. “Sucky”—that was the name of the robot Pepper was holding—“let go of the purse. Alpha Command,” I added for good measure, reminding it who was boss around here.

            The robot complied immediately, which meant both Pepper and Marina were applying pulling force to nothing and they went stumbling backwards in opposite directions. Naturally I went for Pepper. “Hey, are you okay?”

            “It’s got me! It’s got me!” Marina howled. She had been caught from falling to the floor by Dummy, a larger robot who normally just helped me around the shop. It must have come up in the elevator for some Cheerios. Unfortunately the tool currently attached to its arm was a rather nasty-looking claw that it flexed needlessly. She wasted no time fighting the robot off.

            “Jarvis,” I summoned.

            “Yes, Mr. Stark?” the British voice of the house central computer intoned from, seemingly, all around us.

            “Oh my G-d!” squealed Marina in horror.

            “Please send all the robots back to the shop, Jarvis,” I ordered. “And make a note that I need to tweak their object recognition and navigation programs.” _That_ was what it meant when the robots constantly ran into me—not that they were _mad_ at me. That was just ridiculous.

            “Certainly, Mr. Stark,” Jarvis agreed, and the robots began heading en masse towards the elevator.

            Which Marina happened to be standing in front of. Really should have thought of that.

            “The house talks! And it’s sending the robots after me! I’m getting out of here!” She raced for the door.

            “Wait, let me give you a—“ Too late, she was already dashing out the door into the night, still squealing.

            “That may be the first time I had a woman run from the house screaming,” I commented to Pepper, who had followed me into the living room. “Maybe it’s for the best, though—she was pretty loud. I’ve got enough hearing damage already without some woman screaming in my ear all night.”

            “What woman?” Pepper asked curiously.

            “Pepper, sometimes I think any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental,” I was forced to admit. “Jarvis, call for a cab. Tell them to look for a woman in a black cocktail dress about half a mile north of the house. There’s an extra two hundred in it for them, to make sure she gets home safely.”

            “Yes, Mr. Stark. Another successful evening, sir?”

            “I must be a masochist,” I muttered under my breath. Nothing else could explain why I surrounded myself with the servants I did.

            “You’re very cryptic tonight, sir,” Pepper observed. “Would you like a sandwich?”

            “Yes, Pepper,” I decided with a sigh. “Let’s have a sandwich. I didn’t have much appetite at the banquet.”

 

            A few days later, Rhodey and I were down in the workshop, covered in sweat and grease, ripping apart the engine of an old tractor I’d bought on eBay (seriously, you can get _anything_ there). The rock music was blaring, the beer was flowing, and the salty insults were flying. It was a very manly-man situation—if a small mammal had wandered in just then we probably would’ve killed it with our bare hands and roasted it with the plasma torch.

            Of course, then Pepper had to ruin things.

            “Ms. Smith is approaching with lunch,” Jarvis announced, turning down the music. “I suggest you wash up.”

            “Tell her we’re not hungry,” I grunted. “Music at max.”

            The music flared up momentarily, then died again. “Ms. Smith says it’s time to eat,” Jarvis reiterated, a bit smugly in my opinion. “Shall I have a space cleared?” Half a dozen robots began to converge on a shop table, picking up stray parts and scrubbing at grease spills.

            “No!” I commanded. “Don’t touch anything!” The cleaning robots froze in place for a moment, then began setting the objects back down and moving away. Looked like my tweaks had finally produced the desired results. “Jarvis, you can tell Pepper to take that lunch and shove it—“ Rhodey cleared his throat meaningfully and I turned to see Pepper standing behind me with a lunch tray and an unamused expression.

            “It’s time to eat,” she repeated firmly. “Jarvis, please clear a spot on the table.”

            “Yes, ma’am,” the central computer agreed, and the robots went happily back to their tasks.

            I made a noise of frustration and decided to ignore Pepper’s directive—you can see how much testosterone must have been flowing through my system at that point, for me to think that was a good idea. “Okay, should we go with this, or… _this_ next?” I asked Rhodey, pondering two engine components that might hold the secret to dislodging the whole thing.

            He poked at both experimentally with a wrench. “Hmm… _this_ one.”

            “Okay.” I took my own wrench to it, then a screwdriver, then a crowbar. All that moved was a crusty residue of dried oil that was coating the innards like rotting glue. “We’re gonna need the big guns,” I decided gleefully. “Dummy, power drill, right here.” Rhodey and I scooted aside, staring eagerly at the spot the robot was about to attack.

            Only the robot didn’t show up.

            I looked up at the spot where Dummy was supposed to be waiting for our commands—which was now empty. “Where the h—l did he— _Oh_.” Of course the robot had rolled over to see Pepper, who was persistently setting out lunch on the now-clean table. “Dummy! Get back over here and do some work, you lazy son of a b---h!”

            “You’d better go help Mr. Stark,” Pepper told the machine. “He sounds a bit tense.”

            “I’m not _tense_ ,” I refuted. “Just _focused_.” Dummy wheeled back over. “Power drill, right there. Hey, watch it!” The robot had almost nipped the finger I was pointing with.

            The sound of rending metal began to fill the room. “Hey, Birdbrain, are you getting this?” I demanded of the robot with a camera attachment. “Would you focus on this, _please_? J---s!” The camera arm swung back around from where it had been pointed at the lunch table.

            “The robots do seem to like Pepper,” Rhodey observed as we waited for the main body of the engine to come loose.

            “They sense a kindred spirit,” I told him dismissively. “Birdbrain! The _engine_ , g‑‑‑‑‑‑‑t!” The camera arm swung back into position a second time instead of following Pepper across the room. “I swear to G-d, there is more of Pepper’s a-s in these videos than anything else,” I grumbled.

            “I thought that was intentional,” Rhodey joked.

            I couldn’t share his light-hearted mood. I was concentrating too much on the engine in front of us, waiting for its secrets to be revealed by the removal of the part Dummy was drilling. “She distracts them,” I finally muttered, leaning around Dummy’s bulk for a better view. “Some kind of electromagnetic—Stop! Stop stop stop,” I instructed the robot. “Now back off, slowly.” The machine whirred out of the way.

            We stared at the engine for a moment, silent and anticipatory. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and reached in carefully with a wrench, giving the part the tiniest tap. Nothing happened for a second, then—a palm-sized ring of metal fell to the floor. And that was it.

            “What the f—k?” I said indignantly when nothing else occurred.

            “I thought that whole panel was going to come off,” Rhodey admitted with disappointment.

            “ _I_ thought the whole engine was going to drop out!” I complained.

            Rhodey shook his head. “No, man, it’s still attached by those struts at the top. But this panel here—“

            “Those aren’t struts,” I countered, renewing our earlier disagreement. “I told you, they’re parts of the actuator, they’re not attached to the interior housing—“

            He rolled his eyes. “Tony, the actuator is behind the fuel pump, it’s _always_ behind the fuel pump, we just can’t _get_ to the fuel pump—“

            “No no no,” I shot back. “The actuator is _not_ behind the fuel pump, it’s at the top of the housing. I saw a set-up just like this once.”

            “Where?” Rhodey challenged.

            “On a first-generation MiG.”

        Rhodey stared at me. “Tony, it’s a d—n tractor! Why the h—l would it be built like an obsolete Russian fighter jet?!”

            “Well it sure as h—l wouldn’t be built like a _modern_ Russian fighter jet!” I replied hotly, which made perfect sense to me at the time.

            Rhodey opened his mouth to reply. “Excuse me,” Pepper cut in, standing right behind us. “I feel you’ve reached a good stopping point in your destruction. Please clean up and consume some nutrients.”

            I made a whiny, growly noise of frustration. “Let’s take out the other part first,” I suggested.

            “There will be consequences to your refusal to eat the food I have provided you at this time,” Pepper warned.

            For a moment I was going to blow her off—consequences, shmonsequences, what was she going to do, make me feed myself for the rest of the day? Despite rumors to the contrary I _could,_ in fact, open up a jar of peanut butter and—

            Oh wait. _Consequences_. As in, calling up some random guy and having hot monkey sex with him when she wouldn’t have hot monkey sex with _me_! Or at least, having coffee with him. Because really, once that line of unnecessary socialization had been crossed, all offenses were equally bad.

            I hopped up from the floor. “Hey, time for lunch! Boy, am I _starved_! What’s for lunch today, Pepper? What, er, nutritional substance have you prepared for us?” Rhodey was looking at me like I had three heads as I hurriedly scrubbed my hands clean at the sink, but I didn’t expect him to understand. Pepper and I had an _agreement_ , and I intended to stick by it.

            She seemed satisfied with this turn of events. “Today I have decided to focus on food items pertaining to the common bovine,” she announced, straightening up the plates a bit.

            “Er, cow?” Rhodey guessed.

            “It’s all food that comes from a _cow_?” I asked dubiously. “I don’t know, Pep, that sounds a little ooky to me. I don’t think I’m really in the mood for oxtail soup or tongue pâté.”

            Pepper stared at me. “You have eaten foods made from animal tails and tongues?” She didn’t seem particularly grossed out by this—it was more like I had just opened up a whole new world of edible objects for her.

            “Well, yeah,” I admitted, drying my hands. “Also various internal organs. Why, what did you fix?”

            “Oh, it’s roast beef and cheese sandwiches,” Rhodey announced in a relieved tone, peeking at the filling under the bread. “Um, with sprouts.”

            “Cows eat sprouts,” Pepper assured me.

            “Ooh, do they eat Cheetos, too?” I asked with delight, seeing the neon-orange snacks on the plate.

            “Those are your treat,” Pepper allowed grandly.

            “You’re so good to me, Pepper,” I mumbled around a mouthful of food. “You really—J‑‑‑s, Pepper, not again!”

            “How quickly admiration can turn to exasperation around here,” Rhodey remarked dryly.

            “No s—t,” I agreed. “Especially when your assistant thinks robots need to be _fed_.”

            “It’s lunchtime,” she told me stiffly, digging into a box of Cheerios. The robots flocked to her like pigeons on that crazy bird-lady in _Mary Poppins_ , whistling and tweeting and spinning.

            “Wow, they’re really putting on a show,” Rhodey noted, sounding impressed.

            “Electromagnetic interference,” I told him, continuing my thought from earlier. “That’s the problem. Pepper probably just generates a little too much of it. Hmm, that could explain a lot about her, actually. Pepper, have you ever been struck by lightning, perchance?”

            “It _is_ notably attractive, sir,” she agreed, while crouching on the floor to offer handfuls of cereal to the robots. “Though personally I prefer rainbows as a meteorological phenomenon.”

            I spent a moment trying to figure out what she meant, then decided to go back to mocking her. “Okay, Pepper, Dummy doesn’t even _have_ a vacuum function,” I pointed out. “What’s it gonna do with the Cheerios, huh?”

            “Watch and learn,” she advised me, staring at the robot. It sighted the Cheerios on the floor with its camera, then ran over them several times, crushing them to dust. At which point Sucky and other crumb-cleaners rushed in to inhale the debris. “A fascinating example of altruism in the robot world,” Pepper intoned seriously.

            “D—n, it’s just like _Wild America_ , only with robots instead of cougars,” I decided. Rhodey snorted. Pepper straightened up, unimpressed by my attitude. “Seriously, Pep, would you just go and look in the trash sometime? You’re gonna find about fifty pounds of whole, undigested Cheerios, along with whatever other garbage the robots pick up.”

            “I am not accustomed to examining the waste products of members of the household,” Pepper informed me. “However, if you think it would be educational—“

            I held up a hand quickly. “No, no, not at all, Pepper,” I assured her, picturing her hovering around my toilet. “I’m sure that won’t really be necessary.”

            She nodded, clearly deciding she had won. “Good robot,” she told Dummy, patting its framework.

            I didn’t get a chance to roll my eyes. “Hey, _bad_ robot!” I snapped at one, who had lifted itself onto the tabletop and pulled a Cheeto right off my plate. “Give that back before I remove your battery pack!” The Cheeto was ejected from the robot with a sound suspiciously like a raspberry being blown. The once-orange snack was now covered in dust and stray hairs from the robot’s waste collector. “Gross!” I exclaimed while Rhodey chuckled. “No, no, you can take it away now,” I told the robot. “Now that you’ve got your disgusting robot cooties on it. And no, the rest of you aren’t getting any!” I snapped at the electronic crowd gathering at my feet, bumping my shoes. “So beat it!” Apparently the software needed a little more tweaking.

            “Your creations are a little unruly,” Rhodey smirked.

            “Yeah, well, with this kind of volume, you’re bound to get a few duds,” I grumbled.

            “No offense, Tony, but why did you decide to make so many of them?” he questioned.

            “Well, it wasn’t really _my_ fault,” I insisted defensively. “I was just having fun, screwing around, and next thing you know, I’m up to my ears in robots!”

            “That’s very irresponsible of you, Tony,” Rhodey mocked. “You should practice better family planning.”

            “Shut up,” I laughed. “Hey, I can afford for all of these robots to go to college, at least! Maybe only a city college electronics department, though, if they don’t shape up,” I threatened.

            “Yeah, but next thing you know, they’ll be making little robots of their own and—“

            Suddenly a deafening crash made us all jump. “The engine!” Rhodey and I dropped our remaining food and ran over to the tractor—then jumped back as the whole framework screeched and collapsed. “Awesome!” I breathed. I turned to Rhodey.

            “Don’t!” he stopped me, looking suitably chagrined. “I know, you told me so. But I still don’t understand why a tractor and a MiG would be built the same way.”

            “I believe both were designed by the same person,” Jarvis informed us, a bit snottily. “One Milos Vasilichek, a Polish engineer who emigrated to the American Midwest in the late—“

            “Thank you, Jarvis,” I interrupted, more eager to dive into the mess on the floor than to hear a history lesson. “He’s the know-it-all who would get beat up on the playground,” I told Rhodey. “At least Pepper’s got looks going for her.” Which reminded me. “Er, Pep? Honey? Have we eaten enough of our, um, midday nutrients for the moment?” Technically I had a quarter of a sandwich and about five Cheetos left, assuming some robot hadn’t scooped them up already.

            She gave this some thought. “Well, I suppose,” she finally allowed, leaving me and Rhodey free to play in the wonderful scrap heap before us. “But I’ll return in a few hours with a snack.”

            “Okay, thanks, Pep. Dummy, let’s put the plasma torch on you…”

* * *


End file.
